Yechury

Kovind’s aides were allegedly all appointed by the PMO. I’m not sure if this is without precedent and I don’t want to make the mistake of saying that the office has gone to the dogs. We’re going to have to wait and see how this turns out. The article also points out that Pranab Mukherjee was also a long serving politician and was able to talk to MPs through the stranger parts of politics.

The NEET exam that was conducted for post-graduate admissions in August of 2016 was compromised. Apparently, the National Board of Examinations (NBE) hired Prometric (an American company that conducts a lot of the standardized tests that are taken in India) without floating a tender and inviting offers from other companies. This is either complacency or corruption. I doubt anybody can tell which it is. Yet.

DD is looking for a new logo and is organizing a design contest. The last date for submission is August 13th. I think that centralized broadcasting networks can do a lot for creating a general awareness among people. In India, a lot of the outreach that the government does is still over radio, but I think eventually DD will have to come up with more robust offerings on their channel, one television reaches the more remote parts of the country. I mean, I assume It will eventually. Right?

Modi claims another victory. This one is about the fact that Kovind is the first BJP affiliated president that the country has ever had. Kalam was president during their last tenure, but he was decidedly apolitical.

The AG and a 9-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court are going at it over the issue of Aadhar. After initially declaring that the right to privacy was a fundamental right, the bench has seemingly backtracked a little bit. The article goes into the details of the argument and they are pretty interesting. Something that is mentioned in the article is the debate on whether this idea of privacy is an “elitist” construct.

Yechury might not stay a third time in the upper house. The Bengal unit of the CPI(M) wants him, and the Congress is willing to support him, but apparently the Kerala unit of his party might not be willing to send him for a third term.